Primary goods are presented in the important book A Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice

A Theory of Justice is a book of political philosophy and ethics by John Rawls. It was originally published in 1971 and revised in both 1975 and 1999. In A Theory of Justice, Rawls attempts to solve the problem of distributive justice by utilising a variant of the familiar device of the social...

 (1971) written by the american philosopher John Rawls

John Rawls

John Bordley Rawls was an American philosopher and a leading figure in moral and political philosophy. He held the James Bryant Conant University Professorship at Harvard University....

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Rawls identifies primary goods as the “things that every rational man is presumend to want”. This primary goods are the common base for the unanimous selection of the justice principle in the Original position

Original position

The original position is a hypothetical situation developed by American philosopher John Rawls as a thought experiment to replace the imagery of a savage state of nature of prior political philosophers like Thomas Hobbes. In it, the parties select principles that will determine the basic structure...

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Primary goods are subdivided in two categories:

• Natural primary goods: this category includes intelligence, imagination, health, etc.
• Social primary goods: this category includes rights (civil rights, political rights, ... ), liberties, income and wealth, the social bases of self respect, etc.